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China announces nearly 60,000 deaths linked to COVID-19 in a month

China announces nearly 60,000 deaths linked to COVID-19 in a month

Chinacriticized for its lack of transparency about the pandemic, announced on Saturday some 60,000 deaths from COVID-19 since the lifting of its sanitary restrictions a month ago, but the World Health Organization (WHO) requested more detailed data.

After three years of applying some of the most draconian restrictions in the world, China abruptly lifted most of its coronavirus health provisions in early December, following protests against the severity of these measures in several cities across the country.

Since then, the number of patients has increased considerably. Hospitals have been overwhelmed by elderly patients and crematoriums have received large numbers of corpses.

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Despite this, the authorities had so far only reported a small number of deaths.

In December, Beijing revised its methodology for counting deaths from COVID-19 and now only people who died directly from coronavirus-related respiratory failure are included in the statistics.

This controversial change in methodology means that a large number of deaths are no longer recorded as due to COVID.

The WHO criticized this new definition and considered it as “too limited”.

Its CEO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, requested on Saturday “a more detailed chronological breakdown of the data by province”according to a statement from the international organization.

First non-exhaustive balance sheet

In a phone conversation with Ma Xiaowei, director of China’s National Health Commission, Tedros asked that “this kind of detailed information” continue to be shared with the WHO and with the population.

On Saturday, the health authorities released their first non-exhaustive assessment of the epidemic since the lifting of health restrictions last month.

“A total of 59,938″ COVID-19 related deaths were recorded “between December 8, 2022 and January 12, 2023″, Jiao Yahui, head of the medical administration office of the National Health Commission, told a press conference.

Of these deaths, 5,503 were directly caused by COVID-19-related respiratory failure, he noted.

Additionally, 54,435 deaths were due to underlying illnesses associated with COVID, according to the same source. This figure, which does not take into account deaths outside the hospital system, is probably an underestimate.

The WHO had already expressed doubts about the Beijing data on several occasions, requesting faster, more regular and reliable data on hospitalizations and deaths and more complete sequencing of the virus in real time.

The Chinese government rejected the criticism and called on the WHO to take a stance.”impartial” about COVID.

On Wednesday, the Chinese health authorities had considered that “it was not necessary” focus on the exact number of deaths related to the virus.

“The main task during the pandemic is to treat patients,” said epidemiologist Liang Wannian.

Liang Wannian also argued that there was no international consensus on how to classify a COVID-related death.

Yes “a consensus cannot be reached, each country will make a classification according to its own situation”, Liang said.

China could determine mortality figures by examining excess mortality after the fact, suggested Wang Guiqiang, head of the department of infectious diseases at Peking University No. 1 Hospital.

At the time of that news conference on Wednesday, there had been just 37 COVID-related deaths in China since last month, out of a population of 1.4 billion.

Source: AFP

Source: Gestion

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